POTUS v the Pope

Standing barefoot in the snow, wearing only a woollen penitent’s shirt and fasting from morning to evening, Henry IV had time in 1077 to reflect that insulting the pope was a mug’s game. The ruler of an empire that stretched from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, Henry was kept waiting for three days by Pope Gregory VII, who was furious at having been called a “false monk”. For almost a thousand years, other world leaders mostly drew the same conclusion: however bothersome a Roman pontiff might be, it was better not to upset him. Until April 12th, that is, when President Donald Trump told the leader of the world’s 1.4bn baptised Catholics that he needed to “get his act together”. Pope Leo XIV, he wrote, was “WEAK” on crime and “terrible” at diplomacy.

The reaction in the Vatican was one of baffled astonishment. The same was true for many American Catholics. Ashley McGuire of The Catholic Association, which reflects a moderately conservative line, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the president’s diatribe. What was the president up to? One explanation is that he was provoked. Popes speak in generalities. They demand an end to wars without blaming anyone for starting them. They call on governments to welcome migrants without saying which are turning them away. On April 7th Pope Leo himself broke with precedent. He directly criticised his compatriot, describing the president’s threat to obliterate Iranian civilisation as “truly unacceptable”.

That hit a sore point among MAGA-aligned Catholics. Kelsey Reinhardt, president of Catholic Vote, said the pope needed to understand that “many Americans view his interventions as overtly political and aligned with one side of the political spectrum”. She nevertheless joined Catholics who are politically and theologically at the opposite pole in calling for the president to apologise. Even Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, the American prelate most closely identified with the administration, joined in.

After posting his diatribe against Leo, the president also released a creepy AI-generated picture, which he later deleted, depicting himself as Jesus. But, if Mr Trump has performed something comparable, it is to have united most of America’s usually disputatious Catholics in heartfelt disapproval of his words.

That would seem to pose a problem for those Catholics, including Vice-President J.D. Vance, who hold office in the Trump administration. But on April 14th Mr Vance, a recent convert to the Catholic faith, joined in the pope-bashing, though without naming Leo. “It would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” said Mr Vance.

That is what the pope claims he has been doing all along. “I do not look at my role as being political, a politician,” he said. If the cost to Mr Trump seems obvious, there is risk for Pope Leo in this continuing stand-off too. Many inside and outside the church will henceforth see him less as a spiritual leader than as the global anti-Trump they have been yearning for. ■